Domestic Violence in New Zealand is the Loss of Innocence

515 Words2 Pages

It was a few weeks ago, whilst visiting the Banksy exhibition at Canterbury Museum, that a particular artwork stood out to me. It featured a silhouette of a boy and a girl holding hands and walking on a large pile of guns. After giving the artwork some thought I realised that this portrayal of the loss of innocence of children was exceptionally relevant in New Zealand and couldn’t better reflect the growing epidemic across New Zealand that divides families and disturbs children - domestic violence. According to the Ministry of Social Development, approximately a quarter of children in New Zealand have witnessed family violence and there are no signs of these statistics improving. On top of this, the government are attempting to sweep it under the carpet. Last year family violence was dropped as a category in crime statistics obscuring the nationwide rise with the police claiming it was an attempt to align with the Australian methods of crime reporting. Why should we change our ways in order to closer resemble Australia? They don’t have the same unacceptable levels of domestic viole...

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